Revealed: US firm running Guantánamo migrant jail accused over rights abuses

The Guardian

20-02-2025

A corporate conglomerate now running the US government's immigration detention center at the Guantánamo Bay naval base on a lucrative contract has been the subject of critical audits and a civil rights complaint over conditions at three other migrant lockups it has run within the US, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.
In one example, a federal audit report on a migrant facility run by the company in Miami found multiple incidents of alleged 'inappropriate use of force' – including guards pepper-spraying a man in solitary confinement even though he posed no threat to them, the report said.
Akima, the Virginia-headquartered company running the Guantánamo Bay migrant lockup, has over 40 subsidiaries and more than 2,000 contracts with the US government. From IT maintenance to armed security, with work stretching from Saudi Arabia to Arizona, Akima provides government contracting services to dozens of federal agencies.
Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) awarded a contract to one of Akima's subsidiaries to run the Guantánamo migrant operations center.The government has for years run a migrant detention center at the naval base but it became a focal point last month when Donald Trump announced that his administration was going to detain many more immigrants there.
In August of 2024, Akima Infrastructure Protection was given a $163.4m contract by the Biden administration to run the migrant detention facility at Guantánamo through June of 2029. Now, as Trump expands migrant detention there, Akima's role is drawing attention.
The Ice detention center at Guantánamo now operated by Akima is separate from the military prison used to hold terrorism suspects. Since 2021, the migrant facility has detained few migrants, averaging between four and 40 people at any given time, although it was used for tens of thousands of migrant detainees in the 1990s. The Guantánamo Bay US naval base is located on leased land on the south-eastern coast of Cuba, roughly 430 miles south-east of Miami, and separated from the Republic of Cuba.
'The Guantánamo Bay military base is seared in the minds of the world as a dark site of torture and impunity,' said Jesse Franzblau, senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center.
'There is no rational justification for shipping off immigrants to Guantánamo Bay, which should not be used to detain any human beings. Sending people there now without any due process or access to counsel flies in the face of US and international law.'
On 29 January, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to expand the Guantánamo migrant detention center to accommodate up to 30,000 migrants.
Since then, new tent cities have been set up there by homeland security and military officials. According to the US navy, sailors have helped erect tents, with the 'first phase of expansion' increasing the capacity to hold 2,000 migrants.
So far, the Trump administration has sent more than 150 migrant men to Guantánamo on flights from the US, marking the first time that migrants previously on US soil have been sent to the military base. Previously it was used for people picked up at sea.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon's southern command redirected all questions about Akima's contract to Ice.
Ice, the Department of Homeland Security, Akima, and multiple attorneys representing Akima in a lawsuit and in contract disputes did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
According to contracting records reviewed by the Guardian, the migrant facility is split into two, one section controlled by Ice and a lower-security section under the control of the US state department and the United Nations' international organization for migration, with little known about their occupants.
'This long-running program is an important element of US efforts to deter and disrupt dangerous, illegal maritime migration in the Caribbean,' a state department spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian, and redirected all other questions, including about sending people to Guantánamo from the US interior in recent weeks, to homeland security officials. The UN international organization for migration did not respond to a request for comment.
Ice awarded Akima Infrastructure Protection a government contract to run the stricter detention section of the migrant facility. The company was required to guarantee they could quickly expand capacity at the site for up to 400 migrants with the construction of a 'tent city', according to a US government contracting website.
'Guantánamo is an example of how immigration enforcement is expanding past Ice – it is involving the Department of Defense, it is going offshore, in a remote location, to a place that is a place symbolic of abuse and torture,' said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network.
She added: 'It is that much more infuriating to know that there are massive corporations profiting off of people's lives and the abuse that people are experiencing in immigration detention.'
The Trump administration has not released details on how many migrants are currently detained at Guantánamo or how long they will be there. A military spokesperson told the Guardian that, as of last Friday morning, there were 62 'high-threat illegal aliens' at the terrorism-related military prison, and 50 other migrants held at the migrant operations center.
Reports claim that all of the latest migrants at the facility are originally from Venezuela.
Although the Trump administration has accused the migrant men of being the 'worst of the worst' – members of a Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua – CBS reported 'low-risk' migrants, with no criminal record, can also be sent there. Subsequent reports said family members of some of the men claim they are innocent and not members of the gang.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in New Mexico blocked the potential transfer of three other men to Guantánamo. One of those three Venezuelan men said he feared being taken there because it is a 'black hole'.
'I also see that human rights are constantly violated at Guantánamo, so I fear what could happen to me if I get taken there,' Abrahan Barrios Morales said in his statement. The three men were later deported.
Additionally, a group of civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit last Wednesday, demanding that the Trump administration allow migrant detainees access to lawyers.
Records reviewed by the Guardian show that Akima Infrastructure Protection has so far received more than $9m for its Guantánamo operations since August, out of the total $163.4m they were awarded. The biggest portion of that, $7.9m, was given to the company on 7 February, records show.
Elsewhere, a review of documents shows that Akima's subsidiaries contract with agencies within the departments of defense, energy, interior and others. Some of Akima's subsidiaries provide government buyers with IT services, equipment maintenance and other services. Akima contractors also maintain US military helicopters in Saudi Arabia and provide training to Saudi military forces.
In 2022, Akima Global Services, one of the company's subsidiaries, operated a now closed facility in Texas for unaccompanied migrant children, according to court records reviewed by the Guardian.
In other instances, Akima subsidiaries run immigration jails for Ice. Akima Global Services runs at least five migrant detention centers, the Guardian found. These include the Buffalo detention center in New York, the Port Isabel facility in Texas, the North Krome service processing center in Florida and the Florence service processing center in Arizona. This subsidiary, the Guardian learned, also runs guard operations at three migrant detention spaces in Puerto Rico.
Last year, a group of immigrant rights organizations filed a civil rights complaint, alleging that officials at the Buffalo detention facility retaliated against 40 hunger strikers protesting against a lack of free phone calls to family and prolonged lockups, with physical force and solitary confinement. It is unknown whether the homeland security civil rights office launched an investigation or reached any conclusion.
Last October, Ice extended Akima Global Services' contract through the end of this month to run the Krome North service processing center in Miami, despite criticism for its treatment of migrants. Last year, the DHS inspector general released a report that found Akima guards did not comply with use-of-force standards. In one case, the report found, guards pepper-sprayed a detainee through a solitary confinement cell door slot. 'The officers were not under threat, and the detainee was not a threat to himself or others,' the report said.
In response, Ice agreed with most of the inspector general's findings, and added that staffers 'who might have been involved in a use-of-force incident' were 're-trained in de-escalation techniques and mental health assistance'.
In 2023, the DHS inspector general released an audit of the Port Isabel service processing center in Texas, finding there were significant issues at the facility that threatened the health and safety of migrant detainees. The audit documented violations related to use of force. They also found conditions inside the solitary confinement unit to be so unsafe they recommended the building be condemned.
As the Guardian reported in December, the contract with Akima was extended and officials began searching for contractors to demolish the solitary unit, design and build a new one.
The world of federal contracting can be murky, with subsidiaries of subsidiaries often receiving federal government contracts. Akima, the parent company of Akima Infrastructure Protection, is itself a subsidiary, owned by an even larger company, the Nana Regional Corporation.
In the 1970s, to settle longstanding land claims by Alaskan natives, 13 regional Alaskan Native corporations were created. These are all owned by indigenous Alaskan shareholders, with dozens of subsidiaries. The corporations' status means company stocks cannot be sold or traded, making them exempt from certain oversight by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Nana Regional Corporation, which owns Akima, is one of these Alaskan Native corporations, and despite belonging to a giant conglomerate, Nana and Akima subsidiaries are classified as 'small businesses', regularly receiving federal government contracts reserved for small and minority-owned companies.
Akima has so many contracts through its subsidiaries that the company recently boasted of being worth $2bn.
Despite being headquartered in Virginia, Akima capitalizes on its links to Native tribes – its website includes videos and images of Iñupiat Indigenous people and the snowy Alaskan tundra. Although Akima's staff are not all Alaskan Natives, a portion of the earnings go to Native shareholders in Alaska.
It is unclear what the Guantánamo situation looks like currently and what it means, legally, for migrants. DHS secretary Kristi Noem said 'due process will be followed' for migrants there.
The facility is extremely secretive. Contracting documents reviewed by the Guardian mention migrants under Ice custody are to be transported around the base in 'black-out vans' with 'hand restraints and black-out goggles to obscure their vision'. Recent photos released of the Guantánamo migrant detention operations do not show use of black-out goggles, but they do show the use of blacked-out buses.
'I'm very concerned that as we move on to detaining people at Guantánamo, there will be less and less visibility for the American public as to what is going on there,' Bianca Tylek, founder and executive director of Worth Rises, a non-profit advocacy that tracks for-profit companies in the US detention system, said.
Access to information about activities at Guantánamo Bay is especially difficult for advocates or the media.
'Conditions are awful throughout the web of Ice detention in the US. People are subject to abuse, food is often rotten, they don't have access to water. There are places with sewage problems, there is medical neglect and abuse – all of this is endemic, it's part of the Ice detention system,' said Ghandehari of Detention Watch Network.
She concluded: 'So there's no reason to think Guantánamo will be any different. But because we don't have the same level of access, it is going to be hard for us to document how bad it really is.'